Russia’s development of new weapons was nothing but a response to the US withdrawal from the ABM treaty, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday, stressing that Moscow is not going to engage in arms race.

President Vladimir Putin has stressed that his speech could not be considered a beginning of the arms race as it is a retaliatory response to the US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty), as well as to the process of creating a global system of missile defense, according to the spokesman.

“This is nothing else than Russia’s response to the scrapping of the ABM Treaty, the US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty and to the highly active process of creating a global missile defense system, which in the long term was able to break strategic parity, nuclear parity and, in fact, neutralize the strategic forces of Russia,” Peskov added.

“The deterrent element of the nuclear triad, in terms of international stability and security, is well known and accepted by all,” the spokesman noted.

According to Peskov, the statements, made by Putin in his address are not going to increase the isolation of Russia on the international arena.

“It is a wrong and exaggerated perception of the president’s point of view, which he outlined in his address. He also in fact gave an explanation of this point of view in a night interview, which he gave to NBC [broadcaster],” Peskov said, while answering the question on whether Putin’s address to the upper house and possible contacts with North Korea may increase Moscow’s isolation in the world arena.

The day before, Russian Putin presented new weapons systems during his annual address to the parliament. Particularly, Putin said that Russia had created and started mass production of the hypersonic weapon Avangard, which is able of carrying out intercontinental flights at the hypersonic speed of Mach 20 and higher.

Source: Sputnik